🎯 Scenario #8 — Deploy a ReplicaSet and Verify Self-Healing of Pods in Kubernetes

November 9, 2025

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Latchu@DevOps

ReplicaSets ensure that the desired number of Pods is always running.

If a Pod is deleted manually → ReplicaSet AUTO-CREATES a new one.

Step 1 — Create ReplicaSet YAML

# rs-nginx.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: ReplicaSet
metadata:
  name: nginx-rs
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx-demo
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx-demo
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:1.25
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Apply:

kubectl apply -f rs-nginx.yaml

Step 2 — Verify ReplicaSet + Pods

kubectl get rs
kubectl get pods -o wide

You should see 3 Pods with random hash-like suffixes:

nginx-rs-7dd8f995f5-rkzfx
nginx-rs-7dd8f995f5-pxbgl
nginx-rs-7dd8f995f5-7cj2p

Step 3 — Test Self-Healing (Delete a Pod)

Pick any one:

kubectl delete pod nginx-rs-7dd8f995f5-rkzfx

Watch Pods:

kubectl get pods -w

Expected behavior:

Deleted Pod goes away
ReplicaSet automatically creates a NEW pod
Count stays at 3 always

Example:

pod "nginx-rs-xxx" deleted
pod "nginx-rs-newxxx" created

ReplicaSet self-healing verified!

Self-Healing Works Only If Labels Match Selector

If you edit the Pod labels:

kubectl label pod POD_NAME app-

→ ReplicaSet stops managing it
→ Will create a replacement pod.

BONUS TEST — Scale ReplicaSet

Increase replicas:

kubectl scale rs nginx-rs --replicas=5

Decrease:

kubectl scale rs nginx-rs --replicas=2

Thanks for reading! If this post added value, a like , follow, or share would encourage me to keep creating more content.

— Latchu | Senior DevOps & Cloud Engineer

AWS | GCP | Kubernetes | Security | Automation
Sharing hands-on guides, best practices & real-world cloud solutions

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Latchu@DevOps